What is your lesson pacing method?

I did an exact number of lessons every day, though over time that number increased. I had my lessons set in batches of six, and I usually did 12-18 in the morning at a time that I would be sure to hit the first two review intervals throughout the day. Later on, I would do 12 in the morning, and another 6-12 in the evening, at a time that I would hit the +4h interval before bed, and the +8h interval when I woke up.

I also limited my apprentice count to 100-120 max. A very steady number of reviews every day, to keep coasting in that rhythm, and not have times where I had to do a lot more than other days. I could spend a samey, predicatble amount of time on WK every day, which helped my consistency.

If you always level up in the exact same amount of days, doing bulk lessons means all those session start stacking on the same days. I’m not saying it’s wrong, and it works for some people, but doing WK every day for a year+ gets very grating even for the most motivated and dedicated people. If I had been in a period of lower motivation and suddenly have a day with 700 reviews, I wouldn’t have had the patience (or time) to devote to getting it done properly. I would have either ended up rushing, or not finished off my reviews for the day. I always went to bed with zero reviews.

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For me it makes a big difference what type of lesson it is. I find vocabulary lessons to be quite easy, because the meaning is usually obvious and the reading I often already know (through studying vocabulary) or it’s obvious. So in general I breeze through these and can do fifty in a row and still be able to get most of them correct later.

Kanji lessons on the other hand take me a while, since I really try to memorize the mnemonic and reading, and especially since recent levels I don’t know most of the Kanji and their readings. Similar for radicals.

I’m a speedster, so I do my reviews and lessons at planned and set times every day. Currently I use the reorder script to knock out new radicals and kanji right away, and then wait a few hours before tackling vocab. That way, reviews for kanji and vocab are always offset from each other and I can keep my speed up, even if I don’t have time for all my reviews in the morning.

I have to agree with the bombardment method of language learning, at least for myself. I don’t care if I don’t remember a word right away when I learned it in a massive vocab dump. Eventually it will stick. If I go slow I’m afraid I’ll become bored and lose my routine. The risk of burnout on the other hand inspires a “oh yeah, bring it on!” attitude. Keeping my speed up is fun for me and what motivates me to keep going strong.

Whenever I arbitrarily feel my apprentice level items are too many, I start writing down my mistakes onto a flashcard ring and practice outside of WaniKani. This method helps me to cut down on some of them.

I do 6 lessons everyday, 3 kanji and 3 vocab. When I run out of kanji, it’s just 6 vocab. If I have radicals I do them all at once. I might do more eventually but I’ve been working on grammar more instead of just using WK.

Doing a mix has worked out well for me so far. Even though vocab is more important, the big block of vocab after kanji has always felt like a wall keeping me from next level stuff.

Wouldn’t reviewing outside the review time defeat the whole purpose of the spaced repetition? The whole idea of the srs system is to learn it first and get it in your mind, and then to stop thinking about it and come back to it later and bring it up again so many hours/ days later so it solidifies. Kind of defeats the point of the srs system tbh.

I do all the kanji and radical lessons as soon as i get them and then to do between 20 - 30 lessons of vocab every day! Just a tiny bit proud of my consistency at least :')

Sometimes it’s necessary to repeat some words until you feel they stick. If you at the end of the day are able to remember them (and get them out of your short term memory) and level them up to guru/master/enlightened/burned then whatever method was used is still valid I’d argue. With Kanji I’ve sometimes had to just practice them time and time again within a short span, quit the program, and then got them all right in the following reviews (even for longer periods of time)! Whatever works for the person, as long as you’re learning it :')

I go along these lines XD
if(Lessons have new radicals) do all the radicals
else if(Lessons have new kanji) do all the kanji
else do vocab that is left in 24 hours max

But lately im kidna sad couse i dont have 200+ reviews a day ;(

The problem with this phrase is that it’s easy for lots of people to say “oh it’s just how it works for me” only for it to not work. It’s the problem with stuff like anki where you are lenient on how easy it was to recall, or with the script that forgets your mistake, it’s easy for people to go “oh I knew it, I’ll just undo the mistake”
I definitely think it can be counterproductive to chuck your apprentice items into another study program, specially since they said it was just to get them out of the way of too many items…

Sounds like a short term fix that you can then say is just “whatever works for me”

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yes, of course but that depends on the person! I completely agree that it’s easy to be too lenient, but to consider using other means of remembering some vocab or kanji that just wont stick to be “defeating the whole purpose of srs” felt a bit exaggerated. If the person is legitimately learning it (and not just saying it), and then uses srs to make sure it stays in the long term memory (after getting it out of apprentice), it’s definitely an effective method to use!

I’m sorry for making it seem like I was attacking your method, I know everyone learns differently; however, the whole purpose of the SRS is to learn it the first time and then use spaced repetition to put it into your long term memory better, and allow for easier recall. When you bombard your brain with a ton of information all at once it causes you to not learn the information the first time, and makes you have to restudy it like you are doing. So yes what you are doing is working, but you are being forced to restudy it all over again; therefore, you are wasting time and being inefficient. Basically I’m saying you would be better off learning it the first time and getting it into your long term memory faster by only studying it the first time (in the lesson) for a longer period of time, instead of going over 80+ vocab all at once for a shorter period of time on each one.

Listen, I’m no expert, but what I do know is if you tell your brain “it’s fine, I can relearn this/study this again later”, it causes your brain to rely on this. Due to this, you begin to rely on your studying the 2nd, 3rd 4th, etc time to eventually learn it, rather than forcing your brain to learn it the first time and then fetch it from your memory later on in the reviews. When you have this way of studying you eventually learn it, but it is not a great way to learn with an SRS method of learning because you’re basically defeating the point of SRS.

I’m still new, but here’s what I’ve decided for myself for the time being.

  • 20 new lessons a day maximum. this would mean about 400 days worth of 20 lessons each to finish everything, although I assume I will need longer. I want to stay focused and get through it, but it’s a long term grind to me rather than a sprint.
  • no reordering - just do everything in the order wanikani gives it to me
  • If apprentice count is over 100, don’t do lessons
  • Reviews at least once a day, no exceptions.

In general, prioritise avoiding burnout over finishing fast. Better to work a bit slower than to quit.

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Yes, but the goal is to learn Japanese as efficiently as possible. SRS is only one tool to accomplish that. It doesn’t take place in a vacuum, I also “break” the SRS every time I study grammar or reading.

I don’t think its a problem to give an item a little extra help if its bouncing between apprentice and guru.

Yes, but what I’m saying is there is a reason why it is bouncing between apprentice and guru - because you’re cramming too much at once. We are able to learn something so much more efficiently when we don’t have to keep looking up the answer. When our brain is forced to recall something it is able to learn that this is something we actually need to know. However, when we go and look for the answer (in this case, going back and restudying it and essentially relearning it) our brain doesn’t find it that important to know the answer. When we restudy it (going and looking over the answer instead of coming up with it on our own) our brain finds this is how we will be able to find the answer and decides not to store the information in long term. Yeah, eventually after you keep restudying it over and over it’s going to go into long term, but that isn’t very efficient is it?

Anyways, it’s as you said it seems to be working for you. Even though I don’t agree with that method you seem to be progressing how you want to. I just wanted to provide some feedback as someone viewing your situation from the outside and provide vague information on how our brains work. Good luck with reaching level 60 and reaching your goals in learning Japanese. I’m curious to see how things come along as time goes on.

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Oh no… I’m not looking up the answer; I’m quizzing myself outside of WK. It’s an extra rep but I’m still doing recall.

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Just to add my few cents in here, I do all the lessons for radicals and kanji when they pop up, and then 10-20 lessons a day after that (depending on how busy I know I’m going to be in the next few days) to eat away at the vocab from the current and last levels, which helps me learn and remember the kanji. I don’t use the reorder script, but I do tend to do them on the Tsurukame app, which basically has the script built-in (you can mess with the settings) so that sorta counts. It’s worked for me so far, although I am pushing myself to be a bit speedy as I’m trying to do the Dec. 2020 JLPT Race here in the forums. Just find what amount of lessons keeps you moving and learning but not swamped, that won’t help with remembering them further down the line. Good luck and hang in there!

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I agree with this. Before I joined wanikani my self studies were slow and only small information I would bring to myself. Having repeated lessons with lots to review helps apply real world reading pressure as you stated above. I’m still new to wanikani but I will continue with the method of doing all lessons at once along with all reviews as they come. Repetition after all is the name of the game.

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I’m just trying to do the most lessons I can while keeping up with school work.

If I have less than 50 reviews for the day I do another 10-20 lessons

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